


Just My Luck

by kd11



Category: The Last Hours Series - Cassandra Clare, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-13 20:02:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28783878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kd11/pseuds/kd11
Summary: From the work: "She knew what it meant, the heart thumping, the shivers up her spine, and the constant blushing. She had read enough novels to know what being in love was like, but truly? A ghost? A ghost of a Blackthorn, the family who hated her family? A ghost of a Blackthorn whose feelings toward her were most unclear? It was terribly inconvenient."
Relationships: Jesse Blackthorn/Lucie Herondale
Kudos: 26





	Just My Luck

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set in between Chain of Gold and Chain of Iron. 
> 
> It's my first fic, so I hope it's not completely garbage. I hope someone out there enjoys reading it as much as I did writing it!

Lucie Herondale was locked in an ongoing war with her greatest foe: the written word. This particular battle was over an adjective. Lovely? _Cliché_. Elegant? _Overused_. Pretty? _Boring_!

She glared at the page in front of her, exasperated by the voice in her head that kept making useful, yet frustrating, editorial remarks. It was much harder to be angry at the voice, however, when it sounded an awful lot like a handsome, green-eyed ghost who gave her secret smiles and could play the piano wonderfully well, and … Lucie snapped out of her reverie, annoyed with herself.

She was sitting at her desk, hiding from the preparations of yet another wedding party for James and Cordelia. She should have been downstairs, arranging ribbons and stealing biscuits from Bridget, but she couldn’t bring herself to just yet. Her room had been a refuge from all the trouble of James and Cordelia’s fake marriage, and the issues with Belial. The web of deception that they had all spun together had become… exhausting.

Constantly hiding things from the Merry Thieves, faking smiles when anyone talked about how happy James and Cordelia seemed, and pretending to know nothing about demonic powers. It took a great deal of effort not to scream sometimes. She wanted to stay in her quiet room a while longer and let the rest of the world fade away. And, well, if she was being honest, she still hoped Jesse would show up tonight.

He came nearly every night, and even just the thought of him coming made her grin. Lucie thought about the many hours they had spent talking and laughing in this room, the fears she’d confessed, the tragedies he had revealed. The way his green eyes seemed to glow in the moonlight… Only then, she noticed the pounding of her heart.

Lucie cursed herself as the smile dropped off her face. She knew what it meant, the heart thumping, the shivers up her spine, and the constant blushing. She had read enough novels to know what being in love was like, but truly? A ghost? A ghost of a Blackthorn, the family who hated her family? A ghost of a Blackthorn whose feelings toward her were most unclear? It was terribly inconvenient. “Just my luck,” she murmured to herself.

“Oh dear, Is my company truly that awful, Lulu?” She turned quickly from her desk, a little embarrassed, but not surprised. Jesse was leaning against the window, green eyes sparkling, like usual, but with clear worry in them. He was wearing an odd expression on his face, and Lucie could not help but notice, with a pang, that he was as far away from her as possible in the small room.

“Well,” hiding her feelings with a smirk, “I find that you’re not so bad to have around.” _Oh, Jesse Blackthorn, I always want you around._ “How else would I accurately write about ghosts?” _I would give anything and everything for you to be alive._

He looked at her consideringly, “Oh. Well, at least I’m good for something.“ He quipped, but without the usual mischief in his voice. Then Jesse cleared his throat, as if trying to jolt himself back to the present. A strange, grounded, ordinary gesture for someone who seemed so far apart from the rest of the world.

Lucie knew him well enough by now to know he was nervous. “Lucie, I-” She didn’t let him finish, her reply flying out of her mouth. “You are good. For a lot. I didn’t mean what I said before. I-I mean you are-are wonderful company. I always look forward to seeing you.” _What the bloody hell was that? Where are all my words when I need them?_

Jesse’s brows were furrowed as he sat up, no longer relaxedly leaning against her wall. “I love your company too, Lucie, but I need to tell you something.” Oh, please don’t leave me. I don’t think I can get through this mess without you. “I’m...corporeal, now.” Oh. _Oh_.

Lucie let out a little shriek, to which she clamped her hands over her mouth. Jesse smiled, the worry clear in the waver of his smile. Lucie didn’t think she could manage more than one word, so she whispered, “How?”

Jesse scratched the back of his neck with his hand, looking sheepish, “I, uh, think it may have been something to do with my mother, and a spell she found in the Iron Citadel, and I know it’s not perfect, but it’s something-”

Lucie crossed the room in long strides and jumped up to hug him, twining her arms around his neck.

He was still cold, like a stone figure at Chiswick, but he was real and solid. She could feel his hands wrap around her back tentatively. She was short enough that he was holding her up with the peculiar strength of ghosts, her feet dangling off the ground as she clung tightly to him.

Oh, how many times she longed to touch him, as she did many months ago when he gave her that damn locket. He held on to her tightly too, and when he set her down, she was struck by two things: how bloody short she was compared to him, and how close he was.

Jesse appeared to blink out of a daze. “Well, I wasn’t expecting that.” Lucie blushed and immediately started stammering an apology, which Jesse waved away.

“Just because I wasn’t expecting it didn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it.” He looked away from her after that. “In fact, I quite, umm, enjoyed it.”

Lucie wasn’t sure what that meant, but all she knew was she was not going to be the first one to step away. She wanted to hold him again, try to warm him up, though she knew it would be impossible. Raziel knew the last time he had been hugged. Jesse was looking at her again, eyes roaming her face, and reached out one hand, lightly touching the curls that always spilled out of their braids and ribbons, as if he was ensuring it was real.

“I wondered if your hair was as soft as it looked.” Lucie had wondered the same about him, but she would never give him the satisfaction of knowing it.

She smiled, unable to resist teasing him, despite their closeness and her thumping heartbeat that she was sure he could hear. “ You've thought about my hair?”  
Now it was his turn to stammer. “Well, I mean, not thought a lot about it, but I have wondered… I mean-,”

Lucie laughed. “ It’s fine, you can admire my hair, or my incredible personality any time.” _Damn it_. That was rather forward wasn’t it? Then again, they had been meeting in her bedroom for the past few months, and well, he was a ghost who she had just attacked with a hug, so nothing about their situation was very proper at all.  
Jesse chuckled, and gently stroked his hand down her face. “I already do, Lucie.” His voice had gone a bit raspy. “I admire everything about you.” He said simply. She had to repress a shiver down her spine as she tried to regain her breath.

  
“As all good friends should.” It came out as a whisper, not the jest she had intended.

  
He looked down, not meeting her eyes, “As something quite a bit more.” His hands moved over her face, almost absently, until they traced over her lips.

  
“Jesse,” Lucie whispered, unsure of what to say.

Words poured out of Jesse, in a rushed, quiet tone, “I know it’s hopeless, and that I’m dead, and I didn’t mean to fall-”

_Damn it all._

  
Lucie, before she could second guess herself, stood on her tiptoes, grabbed him by the front of the white shirt he always wore and kissed him. She heard a gasp, but it could have come from either one of them, though only she needed to breathe. He then took both hands on either side of her face and kissed her back, with the same desperation she had felt on all those nights where, despite how close they had become, they could not touch.

Her hands were in his hair, and it was as soft as she had always imagined. His hands had moved down to hold on to her waist. _Who knew ghosts could kiss like this?_ As she broke the kiss for air, gasping, she looked at him. He was not gasping, or red and warm from their kiss, like in the novels she had both read and written, but instead looked at her with dark eyes and a look of incredible disbelief, as if he had witnessed something brilliant.

He kissed her again and picked her up, closing the height difference between them and setting her on the windowsill where he usually sat, without breaking their kiss. His hands were cool on her shoulders, and she could hear her name whispered against her lips. She thought they may have kissed forever if not for a knocking on a door. Lucie jumped as James called out “Lu, are you coming down? The guests are arriving.”

Jesse took a step back from her, looking as flustered as she had ever seen him. Lucie cleared her throat, jumped down from the window seat, and started fixing her hair.

“I’ll be down in just a moment, Jamie.” She listened as his steps moved away, fading into dull echoes on the carpet. She couldn’t look at Jesse, or she thought she would forget the party all together.

“I have to go, I think it may be best if you don’t accompany me downstairs, we don’t know what other effects your corporeal-ness could have, or if others, like my father, will see you.” she rambled. He just nodded, looking a little like he had been hit over the head. Quite hard.

“A-after the party over, would you like to umm, perhaps have a conversation? I think one is long overdue.” She asked, hoping her desperation for him to stay wasn’t evident in her voice.

Jesse nodded, looking thoughtful and gave her that half-smile of his. Lucie desperately wanted to kiss him again. “I’ll wait.” She nodded at him and moved towards the door of her bedroom. As she turned the handle, she froze. _I’ve already kissed him, what’s a little more boldness for one night_?

She turned, and inhaled deeply, “While you wait, you should start reading The Beautiful Cordelia.” Jesse’s eyes widened, and he looked at her incredulously.

“It’s on the desk. You can observe my best work.” He gave her a real smile, the kind that made her forget how to breathe, and sketched a bow in her direction.

“I shall do my best to be a good critic.” She smiled, and, a blush already staining her cheeks, added, without glancing at him, “See how you like Sir Jerrod.”

Lucie winked, before fleeing the room. She leaned against her door from the outside, touching the locket around her neck, and grinning like a fool, only to hear Jesse’s muffled, bemused laugh come from the other side of the door. A ghost of a Blackthorn whose feelings toward her were much clearer? _Just my luck._

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for sticking with this to the end! Hope you enjoyed it, and have a nice day!


End file.
